Having knocked out audiences at Castlemaine’s Theatre Royal and St Kilda’s Memo Music Hall in April, Hugo Race and his long-time band The True Spirit head to the Brunswick Ballroom to play their sensational and unique interpretation of The Doors’ seminal final album in its entirety. As leader of St Kilda icons The Wreckery and a foundation member of Nick Cave’s Bad Seeds, Race knows well the impact of “L.A. Woman” on Melbourne’s post-punk scene, and these performances are a genuine labour of love.
The Doors’ final studio album was a bluesy, self-produced, garage-style recording that contains two of their biggest singles, “Love Her Madly” and the atmospheric “Riders on the Storm”. Now considered Classic Rock, it was a conscious return to the garage-rock/bar-band blues roots that had galvanised The Doors’ self-titled debut some five years previous but, more significantly, it also hinted at new directions. The morose spirit of “Riders on the Storm” was later infused in artists ranging from Radio Birdman to Joy Division to Nick Cave, and the incredible title track, with its unrelenting cruise-control beat, perhaps anticipated the motorik rhythms of Neu! The dry, spare sound of the record would also prefigure a lot of post-punk sounds. The album was something of a return to roots release for The Doors; one that saw them come full circle ahead of Jim Morrison’s death. Morrison would be found dead in Paris before the record was even released.
Performing “L.A. Woman” in its entirety is a labour of love for Hugo Race and his psychedelic quintet The True Spirit, and these shows follow the recent release of their critically acclaimed “Star Birth, Star Death” double album. Hugo Race was a key player in Melbourne’s early ’80s post-punk scene, leader of seminal Seaview Ballroom outfit The Wreckery, and a founding member of Nick Cave’s Bad Seeds. He has been a prolific independent producer and recording artist in Europe and Australia for over 30 years with the True Spirit, Hugo Race Fatalists and Dirtmusic.
HUGO RACE & THE TRUE SPIRIT – LA WOMAN 50TH ANNIVERSARY
Sat 19 June, 2021, 6:30pm
BRUNSWICK BALLROOM, MELBOURNE
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